It Seemed To Make Sense at the Time ...

Some while ago I was organising how to make the lifting and securing of my off road bike a little easier and then seemed to get sidetracked somehow. Today I managed to get it sorted out. Well until I try it out in practice anyway. It's based to a large extent around a simple lifting bar. I tried straps and ropes etc. but they all require some slack in them and it made getting the bike high enough a little more difficult than necessary. In actual fact to make it work I had to put the winch up on the tyre lifting outrigger, which works but is just a little more difficult than I had hoped. By using a solid bar I was able to mount the winch on the same bar as for lifting the tyre, which is a little lower and easier to get at. The bar looks like this





and is made from 50mm x 20mm x 2.5mm wall thickness which is more rigid than the normal 1.6mm thickness tube I use for most things. At each end I have provided "cup hook" fittings which mount to the bike and in the middle a lifting ring. A bush of solid steel has been welded into the bar and tapped to match the lifting ring. At the front there are a couple of split bushes (in my favourite acetal material) which attach to the handlebars























like so























and another single hook at the rear which goes under the rack at the back as discussed in a previous post. When mounted on the bike it looks like this


















The next part of the system stays on the truck and looks like this


















Its a triangular tube frame which is pivoted with a couple of bushes again made of acetal, but painted over in this picture. The bushes provide a bearing surface which will not rust where it wears against things and makes a cap for the end of the tube to stop water entering.


















It works by : swing the carrier frame out of the way and lift the bike to the maximum height for the low winch mounting. It's actually impossible to lift it any higher even with the winch on the top mount as the bike is mostly underneath the tyre and fouls if you try to lift it any higher. The inside mirror even has to be swung forward to be out of the way of the tyre.























Swing the carrier frame back underneath and lower the bike into position.























Then the truck mounted triangle can be swung up into position and a bolt, or two, can be used to hold the triangle to the lifting bar.


















This effectively secures the bike to the truck!
The triangular frame ensures the bike can not roll from side to side and holds the bars at the correct distance from the back of the truck so they do not rub. The two hooks and bushes at the front hold the bars square as well so they can't flap around. All that is left is to strap the wheels to the carrier frame. This is just a safety measure as I don't think its possible for them to jump over the rear bar but better to be safe than sorry.

While doing this it became annoying to use the winch as it had the stupidest cord into which an extension had to be plugged, it was only about 600mm long, and because it was hanging all the time it tended to fall out. As I had a few extension cords laying around, they tend to get damaged in the workshop and have to be replaced from time to time, it seemed reasonable to sacrifice one to the expedience of convenience.























While I had the electrical toolbox out I decided it was time to do a few things that had been put off for a while. I needed some more 12vDC outlets inside the cab and I wanted to fit a switch to the rear view cameras as they appear to be on all the time even with the display turned off!
All these electronics and the controls for the non-standard electric windows and central locking which I fitted were on a panel I mounted under the passenger seat when I first built them (the truck is 24vDC and all these extra electronic components were 12vDC), so out with the passenger seat and .....






















I knew I should have made a proper circuit diagram when I built it, but it all made sense at the time . . .